Network devices are becoming more complex as scaling requirements are increasing. For example, given the increase of the number of subscriber devices that request access to a public network, network devices that manage these subscriber devices are required to perform an increasing number of system specific activities, which may be referred to as system events, and process network protocol specific control packets related to manage the increasing number of these subscriber devices. In this way, network devices are required to scale to handle the additional subscriber devices, which involves more complexity as each subscriber device typically increases the number of system events and network protocol specific control packets for which the network devices must maintain to adequately manage the subscriber devices.
Currently, these types of network devices manage the execution of these system events and the processing of the control packets using a “best efforts” method. That is, when there are more events than can be processed by the network device within the given period of time, the network device completes as many of these events as possible within the given period of time. When a burst of system events occurs within the network device, the burst of activities tend to create synchronization between different protocols and system events occurring during the burst of system events and may result in similar bursts occurring at regular intervals, thus preventing the network device from being able to process at least some control packets during the regular bursts. In the case of network protocol specific control packets, the network devices rely upon each network protocol's retransmission mechanisms to resend control packets and otherwise handle the client from which the unprocessed control packets originated.
Furthermore, as the network devices become more complex, the system specific activities may require more resources of the network device and take longer to complete. For example, when the controller element collects statistical information from other hardware elements of the network device, the controller element may be required to fetch statistical information for thousands of clients handled by the network device. In this way, network devices that manage subscriber devices are increasingly under pressure to handle more subscriber devices, which results in scaling issues that limits the ability of the network devices to properly service or otherwise manage the subscriber devices. Requiring retransmission of control packets and delay of system events may cause service disruptions or otherwise impact the ability of subscriber devices to access the network in a timely manner.